"Why won't you marry me?" he demanded, looking angrily into her level, brown eyes. "I have told you I did not love you. That is the reason and the best reason in the world. Now I ask you to drop the subject." "Love somebody else, I suppose," he sneered, baring his teeth in a fatal attempt at an ugly smile. "If I do, it is none of your business," she replied, her eyes beginning to blaze. "That dude sheepman, I allow. He's a gilt-edged vanderpoop, he is! But I'd hate to be in his boots, if you want to know it." "Look here, Mike Stelton," and Juliet drew her horse abruptly to a stop, "either you say nothing more on this subject or I shall tell my father what you have done this afternoon when we reach home." Instantly the man saw he had gone too far, and, with a quickness born of hatred, immediately changed his front. "I was only thinkin' of protectin' you," he muttered, "and I'm sorry I was ornery about things. That feller Larkin is a bad lot, that's all. He wouldn't be out here if he wasn't." Perhaps it was that Juliet had given a greater place to Larkin in her thoughts than she realized; perhaps his eloquent defense of wool-growing had not been sufficient explanation for his unheralded appearance on the range. Whatever the reason, the girl rose to the bait like a trout when the ice has left the rivers. "What do you mean by that?" she demanded. "You remember that feller Caldwell that rode in late to supper the night Larkin come?" "Yes." "Well, I heard him blackmail Larkin for five hundred dollars back by the corral fence. An' Larkin knew what he had to do as soon as Caldwell showed up. Didn't yuh see him turn yaller at the table?" As a matter of fact Larkin's perturbation at that time had been puzzling and inexplicable to Juliet. Also the disappearance of the two men immediately after supper had mystified her. But without admitting this to Stelton she asked: "What was it all about?" "I don't know exactly, Miss Julie, but it worked in somethin' he done back in Chicago a year or so ago. From what I heard 'em say, Larkin just dodged the calaboose. Now there ain't no disgrace in that--that's really credit--but that don't clear him of the crime noways. Why, I even heard 'em talk about two thousand dollars that Larkin give this Caldwell a couple of years back." "How did you learn all this?" she asked. "I was a goin' back to the corral for a rope I left hangin' on a post there, an' I heard 'em talkin'." "And you listened, I suppose," remarked Julie contemptuously. "Mebbe I did," he retorted, stung by her tone. "But you can be thankful for it. I'd be plenty mad if you throw'd yourself away on a man like-a-that. A hoss that'll kill one puncher'll kill another. Same with a man." "What are you saying, Mike?" cried the girl, frightened out of her attitude of aloof reserve. "Kill a man! He's never killed a man, has he?" "He didn't say so in so many words, no ma'am, but that talk o' their'n was mighty suspicious."